Three customers invest in CoWare

SANTA CLARA, Calif.  CoWare Inc., a provider of hardware/software co-design tools, has received a combined $14 million in equity investments from STMicroelectronics, ARM Ltd. and Sony Corp. The investment, which is unusually large for a small EDA company, comes on top of another $14 million received by CoWare in two previous venture financing rounds.

All three of the new investors are longtime CoWare customers or partners, and each will take an undisclosed equity share in the company. The previous investors were venture capital firms, including Greylock, Needham & Co.; GIMV; and IT Partners.

CoWare chief executive Guido Arnout said the latest funding will be used to expand the company's sales channel. "We have worked in a very focused way with a limited set of customers," he said. "We need to expand to new customers."